Lead Technical Architect

LEAD TEECHNICAL ARCHITECT

6MTHS – Rate IRO £650 to £750pd inside IR35

Hybrid working , London , Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol

As a Technical Architect in the Cyber Services Team, you will be responsible for working as part of the Cyber Uplift service team to design, assure and govern secure, scalable, and resilient technology solutions, predominantly hosted on Microsoft Azure.

This role requires architectural leadership across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments to support the delivery of critical public services and aligned to UK Government Digital, Data and Technology standards, Technology Code of Practice and NCSC security principles.

The post holder will:
Work closely with multiple business stakeholders, delivery teams, third-party security vendors and other architects to translate user and policy needs into robust technical designs that are cost-effective, secure and fit for purpose.

Architecture and Design
Design end-to-end technical solutions using Microsoft Azure services aligned to business and user needs.

Review existing architecture and technology configurations against best practice, write recommendations for manageable improvements and changes, propose and follow those changes through to deployment.

Identify areas for improvement, produce detailed statements of work to remediate the areas identified and ensure objectives have been achieved post change.

Develop central documentation from remediation activities, writing up the findings from engagements and transform them into standard operating procedures. This involves creating commoditised, repeatable and scalable procedures used by departments to self-deliver improvements.

Produce and maintain architecture artefacts including High-Level Designs (HLDs), Low-Level Designs (LLDs), diagrams and roadmaps.

Ensure that designs comply with GDS, DDaT, NCSC and departmental architecture standards.

Support legacy-to-cloud and on-prem to Azure migration strategies.

Cloud and Infrastructure

Architect solutions using Azure services, such as:

Azure Virtual Networks, VMs, App Services, AKS.

Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Storage Accounts.

Azure Active Directory / Entra ID.

Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Defender for Cloud.

Design for high availability, disaster recovery, scalability, and performance.

Apply Infrastructure as Code approaches (ARM, Bicep, Terraform).

Security and Compliance
Design solutions in line with NCSC Cloud Security Principles.

Support security accreditation and assurance processes.

Ensure compliance with UK GDPR, Data Protection Act and data classification policies.

Implement identity, access management, and network security best practices.

Governance and Assurance
Participate in architecture review boards and technical design authorities.

Provide assurance on supplier and internal technical designs.

Manage technical risks, dependencies, and architectural debt.

Collaboration and Stakeholder Management

Work closely with Product Managers, Delivery Managers, Developers, and Security Architects.

Engage with suppliers and third-party security vendors to ensure solutions meet government standards.

Clearly communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences and stakeholders.

Key Outcomes

Secure, scalable Azure solutions aligned to government standards.

Reduced technical risk and improved service resilience.

Clear, reusable architecture patterns and documentation.

Effective collaboration between technical and non-technical stakeholders.

At this role level, your skills include:

Architect for the whole context

Architecture communication

Community collaboration

Making architectural decisions

Strategy design and implementation

Technical design throughout the life cycle